by Noelle Adams
Laura turned around when he caught up with her at the front door. “What do you want?”
“I need to talk to Olivia.”
“I don’t know where she is.”
“She came in here. I assume she went to her room.”
“Well, if she went to her room, I assume she wants to be alone.” Laura was never soft, but she seemed sharper than normal, almost brittle, but Scott was too distracted to figure out why.
“I need to talk to her. I need to.”
Laura rolled her eyes. “Well, you can come up and knock on her door, but if she doesn’t let you in, you’ll have to leave.”
“Fine. I’ll leave.”
Scott walked up the stairs to the Holidays’ private residence, and he tried not to shake with impatience as Laura didn’t move as quickly as he wanted her to.
When they got into the main room, Laura gestured him down the hall. “Second room on the right.”
He strode down the hall and knocked loudly on the door.
“I’m not in the mood for talking,” Olivia called out from inside.
“Olivia?”
“Scott?” Her voice had changed, gotten slightly shrill. “What are you doing here? Go away!”
“I’m not going to go away. I want to talk. Let me in.” He kept his voice as low as he could because if Laura heard his words, she was going to make him leave.
“We have nothing to talk about. I’m tired and want to be alone.”
“You can be alone after we talk. Let me in.”
Scott waited, breathless and shuddering with that deepening force in his chest that felt like it might burst open at any moment the way it had last night and again this morning.
Olivia swung open the door and glared at him across the threshold. Her hair was still loose and kinky from the way it had dried overnight, but she’d changed into a pair of loose cotton pajama pants in a white-and-black paisley pattern and a black T-shirt. “What’s the matter with you, Scott? This is my bedroom.”
“I know it’s your bedroom, but you’re in it. That’s why I’m here.”
She made a frustrated gust of sound. “What do you want?”
“I told you. I wanted to talk.” He glanced down the hall when he saw motion. Laura, walking to where she could see him, evidently to see if she needed to make him leave or not. “Please,” he added hoarsely, turning back to Olivia.
She made an impatient face. “Fine. Come in.”
He stepped into the room and shut the door behind him. He tried not to look at the rumpled double bed, which she’d clearly been lying in just now.
Searching her face, he thought he might see a trace of tears, but mostly she looked annoyed with him.
Not just annoyed.
Angry.
She was angry with him.
He frowned. “Are you mad at me?”
“No, I’m not mad.”
“You look mad.”
“I just said I wasn’t mad!”
“And I’m saying you look mad. You look like you want to bite my head off.”
“I do want to bite your head off,” she snapped.
He blinked. “Why? You said everything was okay.”
“Well, I lied,” she burst out. “I lied! It’s not okay. It sucks. It’s terrible! And I don’t care if I should be smart enough to know that having sex once doesn’t mean it’s anything real, but it felt real to me, and then you said you needed space. Space! I was giving you space, and now here you are pounding on my bedroom door looking like... you.”
That pressure inside his chest had exploded and then exploded again. “I am me.”
“I mean the real you. The real you. You look like...” She shook her head fiercely. “So screw you, Scott Matheson. You don’t get to jerk me around like this. If you want to be that invulnerable jackass, then you go right ahead and be him. You just better keep him away from me. You don’t get to be with me unless it’s really you.”
She was fierce. Shining. Blazing with passion and feeling and sincerity.
And Scott didn’t care if she was telling him off right now. She was everything he’d always wanted, and she was standing less than a foot away.
There was no way he could resist the compulsion. He reached out. Took her face in his hands. Kissed her hard.
“It’s really me,” he murmured against her lips. “Olivia, it’s really me.”
Eleven
OLIVIA HAD NO IDEA what was happening, but there was no way she could stop herself from kissing Scott back.
She’d crawled in bed as soon as she’d gotten in her room, hiding under the covers and trying to convince herself her heart wasn’t broken.
It was harder than it should have been.
Then he’d pounded on her door and demanded to come in, and she’d lost it in more ways than one.
So now she was kissing him, letting him push her back against the wall and slide his tongue into her mouth. He was hard. Urgent. Hot as fire. Nothing at all like the nonchalant charmer he’d pretended to be for so long.
He’d said this was him. Really him.
And she believed him.
This was who she wanted. Not the face he’d been showing to the world.
His hands were moving over her body, sliding down to cup her bottom over her pajama pants. She lifted one of her legs to wrap it around his thighs, trying to get even closer to him, trying to feel him as much as she could.
“Olivia,” he said, tearing his mouth away and lowering his head to nuzzle her neck.
“Hmm?” She arched against the wall when she felt one of his hands sliding against the seam in her pants, right over where she was hottest.
“Is it really me you want?”
Maybe in a different context the question would have been confusing, but she knew exactly what he was asking.
He needed her to want the real him, the deepest part of him. Not just the hot man with a cocky attitude.
“Are you blind?” Her hands were fisted in his thick hair, holding his head in place since his tongue was doing miraculous things to the pulse point in her throat. “I’ve never wanted anyone the way I want you. The real you.”
He made a guttural sound and nipped the skin of her neck, causing her to cry out and arch against the wall. She almost lost her balance since one of her legs was still wrapped around him, but he caught her before her knee buckled.
Giggling, they clung to each other for a minute, and the embrace turned into a tight hug that felt needy, naked, incredibly emotional.
Then Scott scooped her up and carried her over to the bed, toeing off his shoes and then moving over her as he laid her down. She pulled him fully on top of her, spreading her legs to make room for his body, and she was smiling like a fool as he kissed her again.
Scott desperately needed to shave. His bristles scratched up her face as he devoured her mouth. But she loved the feel of it. And the feel of the heat from his body pressing into hers. The texture of his jeans through the thin fabric of her pants. The hard bulge she could already feel at his groin.
Everything about him was tense and rough and deep and hard. And she loved it.
“Olivia,” he mumbled, pressing sweet little kisses at the corners of her mouth, on her cheeks. “I’m sorry I said I needed space. I was... overwhelmed. And scared shitless. I don’t want space from you.”
She was so happy it felt like it was spilling out of her as she wrapped both her legs around him. “Good. Because you’re not getting any space anytime soon.”
He was smiling too as he gazed down on her.
She rubbed herself against the bulge of his erection, and she giggled when he winced.
“You shouldn’t enjoy taunting me so much,” he said thickly.
“I’m just trying to encourage you to hurry up. I’m not taunting you.”
He leaned down until he was just a whisper away from kissing her again. “Everything about you taunts me. It always has.”
“If that’s true, then now that you can have me,
why are you taking so long?”
“Just enjoying it. Trying to wrap my head around a world where this is actually happening.”
“Well, get your mind wrapped around it more quickly because I’m dying here.” She squirmed beneath him, tightening her legs around him.
He huffed and kissed her, rocking his pelvis against hers in a way that made her whimper. Then they didn’t have space for talking because the kiss was too deep, too good.
As they kissed, Scott busied himself in taking off her clothes, so soon she was completely naked beneath him, and she was finding the layers of clothes he still wore increasingly frustrating.
She clawed at his sweater, trying to get it off until he finally reared up, grabbed it by the back, and yanked it off over his head. He did the same with his T-shirt, and her whole body throbbed at the sight of him above her with bare chest, mussed hair, and hot amber eyes.
“Take your jeans off while you’re at it,” she said, running her hands down his arms from his broad shoulders to his wrists. “They’re stiff and scratchy, and I’m much more interested in what’s beneath them.”
He chuckled as he stood up to shuck his jeans and then his underwear. His naked body was lean, hard, and gorgeous, and her eyes lingered on his full erection, bouncing slightly from his motion.
“Shit,” he said before he got back on the bed. “We need a condom.”
“I’ve got some.” She reached into the drawer of her nightstand to find the box, pulling out a packet and handing it to him.
He frowned. “You invite a lot of guys up to this room to use those condoms?”
“You’re really getting all macho possessive about that? The two former boyfriends who occasionally spent the night here? You of the fifty-six women?”
His face sobered in a different way as he climbed back onto the bed beside her. “Does it bother you? That there were so many?”
She sighed. “No. Not really. Everyone has a different history.”
He reached out to cup her cheek with one hand. “Listen to me, Olivia. I’m not going to say they were meaningless. That would imply they were disposable, and they weren’t. They were all other human beings who were giving me something of themselves, and I appreciated and enjoyed them and tried to offer them something back. But I was never fully myself with them. I didn’t give any of them all of me. I didn’t even understand what it meant to give all of me... until you.”
Her eyes blurred over, and her throat tightened.
“Do you believe me?” he asked.
She nodded, swallowing over the emotion. “I believe you. I feel the same way.”
“You do?”
“Yes. I do.”
His face broke briefly with emotion as he leaned forward to kiss her. She responded, and it deepened fast until they were wrapped up in each other again and rocking together in the rhythm of lovemaking.
Finally Scott pulled away enough to roll on the condom, and then he positioned himself between her legs and teased her entrance until she was gasping.
Then he finally slid himself home.
She moaned at the tightness of the penetration and lifted her legs to twine them around him again, causing him to sink deeper inside her.
“Oh fuck, Olivia.” His breath wafted over her skin, adding another layer of sensation. “This is everything. You are.... everything.”
She rolled her hips, adjusting to the size of him inside her and processing the honesty of what he’d just said. “I feel that way too.”
He eased his hips back and thrust forward, making her arch and gasp. “You like that?”
“Yes.” She dug her fingernails into his shoulders.
He thrust again, more forcefully this time. “You need that?”
“Yes! I need more.”
“Then I’ll give you more. I’ll give you everything.”
He kissed her again and kept kissing her as they began to rock together, starting slow and steady until hot urgency took over. Eventually they had to break the kiss because their motion was so rough and eager. The bed squeaked shamelessly, and their bodies slapped together, and the sensations coalesced into a hot, intense blur of pleasure.
When she felt an orgasm starting to crest, she strained toward it, shaking and panting and clawing at his back. She was making a lot of embarrassing sobbing sounds, but she didn’t even care.
Scott must have been able to feel how close she was because he pushed into her faster, harder. “Come, Olivia. Come now.”
“I’m... trying.”
“Oh fuck. Oh please. Come now.”
Something about his helpless words and the frantic motion of his body pushed her over the edge. She cried out as release shuddered through her, and she was starting to come down as she realized that Scott had fallen over the edge too.
His thrusting had become rough and jerky, and he was letting out loud grunts with each push. Then an intense pleasure and relief twisted on his face as he let himself go.
She held him as he rode out the spasms, and then she kept holding him as he collapsed on top of her.
She was hot, sweaty, and breathless. She was sore between her legs from two rounds of vigorous sex in one day, and Scott’s weight was resting on her fully—heavy and sweltering.
But she wanted it more than anything.
It answered a vacancy in her heart she hadn’t even known was there.
She stroked the scratches she’d made in his skin and let her body relax.
“Olivia,” he rasped.
It didn’t sound like the beginning of a sentence. It sounded like the end.
She smiled.
Maybe in time she’d need some other words, but for now this was more than enough.
Twelve
SCOTT KNEW HE NEEDED to move, take some of his weight off Olivia. He was too heavy to do this to her, and the condom was going to start leaking soon.
But it took a massive effort to make himself roll off her and then another massive effort to sit up on the side of the bed.
He felt almost as shaky as he had this morning when he’d had sex with Olivia for the first time. He hefted himself up, limped to the bathroom attached to her room, and threw the condom away before he washed up. He splashed water on his face and stared at himself in the mirror.
He recognized the unshaven, brown-eyed man in his reflection—with messy hair and a faint scar slashing through his eyebrow from a fall when he was three. But he didn’t recognize the look in his eyes. So completely vulnerable. It thrilled and terrified him both.
If Olivia wanted to break him, she could.
“Scott?” She stood in the doorway of the bathroom. She’d pulled her pajamas back on, and she was watching him with a tender wariness that sliced through his heart.
He wasn’t going to push her away again, no matter how new this was for him. He walked over and pulled her into a soft hug.
She wrapped her arms around him and burrowed close, emotion shuddering through her body for a few seconds. He leaned down to kiss her when she looked up at him.
“Do you want to come back to bed with me for a while?” she asked.
“Yeah. Yeah, I do.”
They returned to bed, and Scott put on his underwear before climbing under the covers beside her. He settled her in his arms so she was pressed up against him.
He was already hot from sex, and her body was very warm, but he didn’t care if she made him even hotter. He wasn’t going to let her go.
“Scott?” Olivia said after a few minutes.
“Yes.” He brushed a kiss into her hair.
“So are we... dating now?”
He released a soft huff of ironic laughter. “Yeah. I guess you could say that.”
“Exclusively?”
He tilted his head so he could see her expression. Her eyes were huge and sincere. “Yes. I hope we are.”
Her face relaxed, and her inner shining replaced the question in her eyes. “Okay. That sounds good to me.”
“Good. Because I don�
��t want to be with anyone but you, and I don’t want you to be with anyone but me.”
“That’s what I want too.”
He exhaled deeply and stroked her soft hair. “Thank God. If you told me you wanted to date someone else at the same time, I’m not sure I would have taken it well.”
She giggled. “I wonder what everyone else will say when they find out about us.”
Scott cringed at the thought of telling Kent, who still grumbled every time the Holiday name was mentioned. Kent had borne the brunt of their father’s failures, before and after the feud with Jed Holiday. Phil would probably be happy for him, and Russ...
“Russ was giving me a lecture earlier about stepping up with you, so I think he must already know.”
“Really? I didn’t think anyone knew there was something going on between us. I didn’t even know.”
“I know you didn’t. I knew I’d always been crazy about you, but you never liked me even a little bit.”
“I liked you when we were kids. Once I even tried to learn about model cars so I’d have something to talk about with you.”
Scott stiffened in surprise. “You did?”
“Yes. I was—I don’t know—eleven or twelve. I tried to study up on them and then went to the garage where you were working to talk to you about them.”
He lifted his head, his eyes widening. “That’s why you came into the garage that day?”
“Yes. I thought you only saw me as a silly airhead, so I was trying to prove I wasn’t, but I got all mixed up and didn’t remember what I’d studied, and so I just giggled nervously.”
“I thought you were laughing at me!” His brain was nearly exploding at trying to process this new interpretation to an incident that had always needled at him.
“Of course I wasn’t laughing at you. Why would I laugh at you? I was the one who couldn’t remember any of the names of the cars I’d just memorized, and you were sitting there not saying a word like you thought I was an idiot. So I just giggled and made up an excuse and ran away as fast as I could.” She exhaled deeply as she stroked his chest, playing with the light scattering of dark hair there. “I wasn’t used to people not liking me, and I didn’t know why you didn’t, so I just assumed you thought I was stupid.”